
Kanamara Matsuri or Festival of the Steel Phallus is an annual Shinto fertility festival that is held in the city of Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Held in spring on the first sunday in april, the festival was centered around a local penis-venerating shrine once popular among prostitutes who wished to pray for protection against sexually transmitted diseases. But now the festival has become somewhat of a tourist attraction and is used to raise money for HIV research.
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